Curtains for Polonius
by ghostofadrunkensailor
Summary: Donut goes missing, and Grif decides to do something for once. Meanwhile, he has to figure out if Simmons is there to help him, or if he's just as bad as the others... (Some of the chapter titles are different from my AO3 version, but other than that they're aren't many other changes.)
1. Don't Look Down

"Jump, I've got you." And he held his arms out, almost across the gap between us. I teetered on the railing, my heart in my throat.

"I can't." I said, my voice shaking. The drop from under the balcony looked fatally deep, even if Simmons was three feet away from me. As I hesitated, the pounding on the door increased in volume. There were more of them at the other side, and it wouldn't be long before the door was broken down.

"We don't have any time!" He looked back at the others, all of them ready to leave the two of them and escape. He sighed, and gave them a pleading look. Simmons was already pushing it, he knew that. He turned back to me, arms still outstretched. "Look at me."

I stared at his face, dirty and bruised.

"I promise, I won't let you get hurt. Not while you're with me."

I wanted to laugh. "Am I supposed to believe that?"

He looked exasperated. "I don't care! All I know is if you don't jump, I'm never going to see you again." -he cut me off before I could say how nice of an idea that actually was- "And you might die, so there's that."

He must have seen the fear on my face, or saw my legs shaking. "Grif, please. You have to trust me."

The door splintered in the room behind me, and my feet left the rail. I was falling for only a second, before I felt his arms around me, holding me for dear life.

"There." He chuckled under his breath. "Didn't I say I would catch you?"

We rain like wild dogs out of the next apartment. We broke out of the next building and slid down its side while I told God that if he left me live, I'd never eat another pack of hot dogs in one sitting ever again. The dirt and rust from fire escapes and brick dug into the palms of our hands, but before long we had hit the sidewalk.

And as I traveled with the group, I realized that I didn't know where we were going anymore. I would kick myself later for falling asleep during the meetings. But I couldn't think past running as fast as it took to get away. There was an insistent pressure in my head that told me that if I stopped, I'd never see any of the group again.

I wouldn't be able to see Simmons or Donut ever again. And whatever kept my feet pounding on the concrete knew that I couldn't let that happen. "There! The car!" One of them pointed to a getaway car, and Simmons stopped.

He stopped me, guilt painted all over his face.

"You don't have to go with us." He looked apologetic, scared. He pointed towards an alley. "If you go down there and jump the fence, they won't go after you. It's us that they want. He swallowed. "I'm sorry about all of this."

"Oh, come the fuck on!" I dove into the car and we drove out of the city. I grabbed his arm tightly. "In case you weren't sure, Donut's my friend too." I looked up at him with determination filled eyes. "And you promised that you wouldn't let anyone hurt me. You can't go back on that."

Police cars screamed behind us, giving chase across a broken road, and he smiled.

I swear, if Donut isn't already dead, I'm going to kill him for this.

Franklin Delano Donut and Dexter Grif were the generic brand of roommates you could find at any apartment capitalizing on a community college. They got along well enough, and tended to bond over their mutual hatred of said community college. It was a comfortable friendship, but Grif always had his concerns. Especially when things just get worse around them, which had been happening since three months ago.

And it's not to say that Grif hated Simmons. But when so many people have nearly broken down the door demanding drug money, you start trusting people a little less and reinforcing your windows more.

Yeah, Donut didn't associate himself with the best bunches of people. But on most days, nothing happened. So the day their neighbor mentioned a funny looking new friend Grif's blood froze.

"You sure you don't have dementia yet, old man?"

His neighbor huffed in a gruff, southern accent. "Boy, one of these days your sharp tongue is gonna get you into serious trouble. Hopefully by me. Anyways, he didn't look like the rest of the people you seem to attract. Seemed cleaned up, like a wuss or businessman or something."

"And I'm sure he's just as sweet as he looks," Grif snarked, "I'll probably get home and none of the furniture will be broken and we'll share a jug of chocolate milk!" He grimaced. "I'm gonna get back to the apartment."

"Very well, soldier. If you need me, I'll be enacting a plan to finally destroy the East Building from the bottom up," he shouted, "They've turned my cable off for the last time!"

Before someone could tell him that he hadn't paid his cable bill, the old man had already ran out the West Building's front door. Grif balanced the bags of groceries over his shoulder and made the long trek to fourth floor.

The 17th door opened with a loud creak as Grif pushed on it, but it didn't fall over, which was a good sign. And no furniture was broken. Even better. He walked into the kitchen, only to freeze at the doorway.

"Hey Grif! How's the Sarge doin?" Donut was chipper as ever, but Grif was busy staring at the redhead that sat next to him at the table. He looked at what actually seemed like a harmless guy, but the suspicion still creeped up on him.

Grif shook out the tension in his back, and shrugged. "Well, he might actually get a SWAT team after him this time."

Donut smirked. "Oh? I'll start making an alibi for him now, then." Donut glanced over at the redhead, and grinned suddenly. "Grif, have you met Richard? He's a friend of a friend, and I thought it would be nice to have him over for lunch!"

The other man spoke up, "I actually like being called Simmons..."

Donut smirked again. "That's a shame, I prefer Dick."

Grif snorted. "You sure do." Donut threw an empty soda bottle at him as they started laughing.

Simmons was a bit red, but smiling nonetheless. Grif relaxed more, and decided that he probably didn't have to worry this time around. The night went on the same way, with laughter and video games and eventual drinking. Towards the end of the night, Grif excused himself to go to the bathroom, and bumped into Simmons.

"Hey cherry-bomb, how's it going?" He slurred. Simmons pulled Grif into the kitchen. He looked sober for the most part.

"You know your friend's in danger, right?"

Grif couldn't think straight enough to understand what he meant. He mulled the question over for a second, before sluggishly shrugging his shoulders. "He can handle himself, man. Plus, last time someone tried messing with us they got an angry vet with a shotgun to the face. It's not like we're helpless." Grif paused to burp, and Simmons nearly gagged. "I wouldn't worry about it."

Simmons looked even more wound-up, and then tried to hide it. "I hope that's true."

"Hey, you give me like two minutes, we'll set up some Halo and shots and then we'll just take it easy."

"Heh, you're really good at taking it easy."

"It's a gift," Grif patted Simmons shoulder as he was walking past him, "Come on, cutie."

"Excuse me?!" Simmons sputtered, which made Grif guffaw as he tripped into the bathroom.

The rest of the night blurred by, but it was cathartic to finally chill at home, after months of stress. In the back of his mind, Grif wondered if that meant it was over, or that it was gonna get better.

Grif wouldn't understand how wrong he was until the next morning, facing an apartment door that was busted off of its hinges.


	2. One In Thirteen

Grif had thirteen different scenarios for how he was going to find out where Donut went. 7 of them involved Grif getting the shit kicked out of him, while only 3 actually involved the police. Try as he might, he didn't feel like he could count on them in times like these. Regardless, he could fix this on his own. He just had to figure out where, and why they took his roommate.

But as he tried to tug his handcuffed wrists apart, he realized he had a more pressing issue at hand. Turning over onto his side, he noticed a chair that had been kicked over and a broken glass. Bile built up in Grif's stomach as he rolled to sit up against the wall. His head swayed. He was hungover or drugged or both, and Donut was getting farther and farther away from him. He could feel it. Fear started to flare up in his brain, and he struggled to stand up. Everything was dark, save for the lights coming from down the hallway. There weren't any actual windows in their apartment, so he couldn't tell what time of day it was. Grif tried to hope that it had only been a few hours, that he still had time.

And he bit the inside of his mouth, woke himself up, stood up. The burning in his stomach felt like an angry fire, and before he could stop himself to think things through, he stormed out of the apartment.

Lopez dealt with enough in his life. Crazy neighbors, language barriers, it could go on for the rest of his agonizing existence.

And it probably would, as he heard what sounded like a body throwing itself against his door. He opened it to find the layabout from the fourth floor, only handcuffed and staggering. He didn't show any emotion in his face. "[I really don't want to know.]"

Grif stumbled into the room, looking like he was about to puke. "Yeah, I'll explain later." He started looking around for something specific. "Where's your boss's room?"

"[I pay for this apartment, dickbreath.]"

"Damn. I'll have to tell him to alert the Navy later. Hey, you got any bolt cutters?"

Lopez sighed, and went to unlock his toolshed. Sarge must have decided a long time ago that it was easier to keep this kid alive than it would be to be a federal witness. As he prepared to cut the chain, he paused to stare at the handcuffs themselves.

"[Police handcuffs?]" They were the real deal, alright. What kind of trouble...

For once, Grif seemed to understand what Lopez was implying. "It's worse than you think." He swallowed. "They took Donut, and I don't know what they're going to do to him." The chain snapped under the cutters, and Grif rolled his shoulders.

That meant he was going to go after them. Call it a moment of weakness, but Lopez felt something like empathy. He motioned for Grif to follow him, and pulled out another set of keys. Towards the corner of the main room was a small door, and Lopez kneeled down to unlock it. He turned back towards Grif, who then kneeled next to him.

"[If you tell Sarge I did this, I'll feed your corpse to my garbage disposal.]" With that, he yanked the door open and moved something around. Grif squinted inside, and found a series of small TV monitors, a keyboard and a mouse. Lopez fiddled with the keyboard for a few minutes, and grimaced before pulling out a small CD. "[It looks like most of the building's cameras were tampered with last night, so this probably won't help. But,]" he handed it to Grif, "[you can try to find something.]"

Grif was oblivious to what he said, and thanked Lopez. "Aw man, this is perfect! I'll be able to see them, their car, everything I need! Ha, what kind of criminals don't even check for cameras?" Lopez felt all the empathy leave his body as he locked the door again. Grif stood quickly, and all the color drained from his face. He rushed to the bathroom with Lopez running shouting behind him.

"[Are you serious?! Hey, puke in your own apartment! I just cleaned the bathroom!]"

The CD turned out mostly black footage for a few hours of last night. Grif's hand ran through his hair and tugged at his roots in frustration. Not to mention, the camera was so low quality it barely picked out any faces. Drawing another blank, he thought about calling the police again. It wasn't too late, afterall. In fact, why hadn't he done it in the first place? Grif looked down, and saw the cut handcuff that stayed on his wrist. Still, something in the back of his head told him that it would just make things worse. As stupid as it may seem, Grif had to think that there was a reason Donut's kidnappers didn't leave a note for ransom.

But if they didn't want money, what do they want?

Grif had been rewinding the video unconsciously, and he looked up when he noticed a familiar face. Donut practically bounded down the hallway, followed by another familiar mess of red hair. Simmons, he guessed. His grip on his mouse tightened. He clicked forward, looking for anything. He knew he should have been more suspicious yesterday. Oh, he looks harmless. Let's immediately get drunk together! Good idea, Dexter.

Grif paused. The redhead had pulled a binder from his jacket while climbing the stairs. He started opening it, when Donut turned around and rushed towards him. He looked almost unsettled by something. Simmons seemed to nod, and closed the binder before they reached the fourth floor. The more Grif tried to go over it, the less sense it made. Until Grif noticed the blurred emblem on the front of the binder. Shutting his laptop, Grif took the stairs two at a time and made a beeline for the local community college's science department.

Grif's reward for his detective efforts were a half-mile jog to the back of the Science and Technology building. He knew this door had a faulty lock, and if he pushed in the doorknob just right... there. He had it open. Amatuer Detective/Tresspasser Dexter Grif strode into the lab only to be met with a pistol in his face.


	3. Our Lady of Grace(ful Violence)

Something you may know about movies is that they don't always accurately represent real life situations. For instance, when Grif walked into the room and had a gun pointed in his face, he froze. There was no 'Liam Neeson knocks the gun out of their hands and kicks out their legs'. Grif just stood there, staring forward into the thing that could very easily kill him. To his credit, the person in front of him hadn't squeezed the trigger yet. They shared tense eye contact for about ten seconds before another voice broke the silence.

"Wait a second, Carolina!"

Grif stayed unmoving, but saw Simmons across the room. That anger from before overflowed, and Grif knew he wanted nothing more than to fly over there and suckerpunch him. He tried to speak, and it came out in a drawn-out, growling voice. "You motherfucker."

There was another tense second, and then the woman called Carolina brought the gun out of Grif's face and rested it at her side. It was still pointed at Grif, but gave him some room to breathe. Though, Grif wondered just *how* much room that meant.

But Grif had seen enough in her eyes to know that he didn't want to find out. He sagged his shoulders. "Alright, look. I'm not armed."

There was an audible rustle of chain as the handcuffs that were still of Grif's wrists moved. Grif sighed, Carolina raised an eyebrow, and Simmons looked even more alarmed than before.

In the back of the room, another person that Grif hadn't seen before started laughing under their breath. They got up, and moved to put a hand on Carolina's shoulder, before wisely reconsidering that action. They instead raised the hand in greeting. "It's looks like you've had enough trouble already. Hey, if you promise not to kill four-eyes over there, Carolina won't kill you, alright?"

Grif nodded, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. He felt the few things he brought with him. A cigarette lighter (that he stole from Sarge's apartment), a package of Twinkies (for emergencies, obviously), and the CD footage of the hotel. He hadn't been smart enough to bring a weapon. Or his phone. Or wallet.

Not only could Grif not catch a break, but it seemed like he wasn't giving himself one either.

The other person motioned towards the window. "I saw you outside, hungover and barely jogging over to us. Though I didn't expect the broken handcuffs." He paused, smirking. "So, either this is a Walk of Shame from a bad night of BDSM-" Grif heard an annoyed groan from Carolina- "or your name is Dexter."

Grif smirked back, despite the situation. "I go by Grif." His smirked dropped as he remembered why he ran here in the first place. "Listen, who are you? And where's Donut?"

"The name's Tucker," he stopped smiling, "and I'm sorry about your friend. He's not dead or anything. I mean, we don't think he-" Tucker stopped himself, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Simmons, can you explain it?"

Grif pointedly didn't look directly at Simmons at he talked. "Last night, a group of people came into the apartment while you and Donut were asleep. They locked me in the bathroom, and took Donut. I got out through a window, but before I could get outside, they were already gone."

Grif furrowed his brow. "That doesn't make any sense. Didn't you see them?"

"I was already in the bathroom, they just locked it from the other side. I couldn't even hear their voices."

Carolina's authoritative voice picked up the discussion. "Simmons called us about a few hours ago, and so far we've managed to track down a few pieces of information here. We have a few leads as to who took him, but it's more complicated than a simple kidnapping for ransom."

Simmons nodded. "Donut's been kidnapped by a group of people who we think want him for information. It's very unlikely that they would kill Donut, but we don't have much to go on." He pulled out the binder that Grif had seen on the camera footage. "This is a project that Donut and I had been working on together. It was basic coding for a personal GPS project he had started a few months back. It might be helpful, but," he flipped through the pages, a frustrated look on his face, "there are parts of pages that corrupt it. Sections of code that don't make any sense with the rest of the programs. I can't make heads or tails of it."

"So you're stuck." Grif looked up at Simmons, more confused than ever. Grif knew that Donut stayed up late most nights, but he hadn't assumed it was to write unreadable code.

Simmons stayed staring at the binder's contents, and Grif faltered. He looked miserable, and guilty. And in a way, it did make sense. There's only so much that Simmons could have really known. Hell, Grif didn't even know what Donut got up to most of the time anyways. How was a colleague supposed to know more than his own roommate did? He looked down at the page that laid open in Simmons lap, and then looked a seconds time. "Can I see it?"

"Sure. I've stared at it so long it's giving me a headache. I've tried running all the code, but each section stops it before it can even start. They're like road blocks." Simmons hesitantly looked at Grif as he handed him the binder. "I tried talking to Donut about it the night before..." he trailed off, before looking down at the ground. Grif sighed through his nose, and paged through the binder. He wasn't very good at programming, but attending one year of Harvard had to have helped him somehow. There had to be something to the code that they were missing. Donut may have been disorganized, but he wasn't stupid. What did he always say?

"Organized chaos..." Grif mumbled out loud. Tucker looked over his shoulder curiously.

"You got something there?"

"These sections aren't corrupt, they're more mismatched than anything. We could try taking them out entirely, see if the program works then. Maybe there's something in there that we can use." Grif wasn't very confident in what he was saying, until Carolina perked up and turned on one of the nearby computers. Grif walked next her slowly, and placed the open binder next to the computer. Tucker was grinning at Simmons matter-of-factly, as if it was his idea to bring Grif here. Simmons smiled back uneasily.

After a few minutes of Carolina and Grif editing code that had already been entered into the computer, they let Simmons take over. It wasn't long until the code itself was compiling smoothly, so Carolina took the time to introduce herself and Tucker.

"I'm an ex-agent from a federal protection agency. Unfortunately, you can only meet so many important people before it's decided you know too much. I wouldn't have minded, if I could have lived off the checks they gave me afterwards." She smiled apologetically at Grif. "Sorry about shoving a gun in your face. It used to be very 'shoot first and ask questions later' kind of life for me."

Grif felt more at ease with Carolina than he did half an hour ago. He figured that if she could be that eager to protect someone, that her and Grif would get along well. He looked over at Tucker, who lounged in a computer chair with his feet up on a table like a cowboy. "And what about you, Tucker? Any lone-wolf origin stories for a cool guy like yourself?"

"I'm the father of a new type of alien-human hybrid race that will eventually destroy all life on Earth."

Carolina rolled her eyes. "Tucker used to be a paid bodyguard for anyone who could afford it."

Tucker waved his hand around as he talked. "I helped Simmons out a few months back after he had gotten mugged not too far from the college. Something didn't really... sit well with me. The guys looked more decked out than they should have been. So I kept an eye on him up until this blew up in my face."

"Wait," Grif held up a hand, "how do you find an ex-government agent and a private bodyguard in the same place?"

Simmons stopped typing for a moment to speak up. "Craigslist."

"Ah. Okay." He put his hand down.

"Hey, uh," Simmons turned away from the computer to face everyone, "I took out the parts that didn't work, and no errors have popped up. So we should be able to run the program now."

Everyone crowded around the computer as Simmons ran it. A window flashed once, twice, then covered the whole screen. There were two singles statements in the corner:

[TRACKING CONTENT UNAVAILABLE]

[UNABLE TO EXECUTE]

"Are you serious?" Tucker rubbed his face with his hand. Grif deflated.

Carolina looked at the screen, then at the binder, then back again. Realization flooded her face, and she clapped a hand on Simmons shoulder. "What? What?" Simmons looked where Carolina was staring, and his eyes widened. "Oh. Oh my God." Simmons started clicking frantically and stabbed the keyboard with his fingers. His voice was filled with excitement as he worked. "Grif, you were right! The code isn't useless, it's in the wrong place!" Faster than lightning, Simmons had started up the program again.

The laptop whirred as a new window flashed. It required a password, which Simmons typed with blinding speed- "It's always 'password'"- and green text filled the top of the window.

Coordinates lit up the screen, and Carolina rushed to figure out where they headed to. Simmons jumped out of his chair, and started gathering equipment into a backpack. "That's it? That's where Donut is?"

Carolina nodded and packed another gun on her person. "He's about 50 miles from where at, we'll take the laptop with us, just in case it changes."

Grif's frantically started grabbing anything useful and stuffing it into bags. Simmons moved towards Grif. "Hey, I know you probably still don't want to talk to me right now, but I am sorry. And I promise we're going to find him."

Grif turned to Simmons, eyes burning gold. "Promise me."

Simmons swallowed the lump in his throat. "Scout's Honor."

Grif stood, and pulled Simmons up with him. "Alright."

They moved quickly towards a large car outside, and piled into the back. "Besides," Simmons joked, "how much trouble could they actually give us?"

He interrupted Tucker before he could reply. "Don't answer that."


	4. Bribed Malice and Misguided Malpractice

Frank "Doc" DuFresne wondered how long it would take for him to die. A morbid thought? In different circumstances, yes. But the longer he gazed around the featureless, dirty room, it was harder to ignore that he might die sooner than he should. It wasn't like he was very useful to the guys that had, well, "employed" him. He was just a desperate Med student who was two bad letter grades away from failing and a hundred thousand dollars in debt.

He looked down at the new patient asleep on a worn-out cot. That had been his new task, to keep him healthy. Before that, he just had to keep them alive and quiet.

That brought Doc back to how he got here in the first place. He had been wondering about the drug front that looked to be like a publishing studio. "Natural Creativity" sounds more like an advertisement for LSD once you gave it some thought.

Of course, he didn't look past the cheap slogan and strolled through the front doors. As soon as he talked about his thesis for advances in modern surgery they pulled him down into their basement and made him patch up an empty, bleeding eye socket. He was five hundred dollars richer, but he soon found out that he couldn't leave town.

The person in front of Doc stirred, and he was snapped out of his flashback. They groaned as they tried to sit up on their elbows, and Doc rushed to settle them back onto the cot.

He donned a chipper, proper-bedside voice as he made sure the man's arm was still cuffed to a hook on the wall. "Good morning! I'd advise you not to pull too hard on your arm, a sprain can cause quite a bit of pain if left unchecked." He went through the standard routine of telling the patient what kind of situation they were in, how many firearms their captors have, and please, refrain from screaming.

He paused to catch his breath (he had a tendency for talking too fast). "For the time being, you are with me not just to be alive, but relatively comfortable. If there's something you need, I might be able to get it for you."

"How about a date after this all blows over?"

Doc coughed in surprise. He blinked, wondering if the lack of sleep was really getting to him. He looked up to see the other man smirking at him. "What did you say?"

"I was thinking that Italian place on 7th street looked nice on the way here-"

"You were in the trunk-" Doc sputtered out.

"-but you also seem like the kind if guy who collects antiques. I know a small little store downtown, I'm always looking for little wood knick-knacks to decorate the apartment."

Doc paused, flabbergasted. He adjusted his glasses, his face a deep red. "I didn't think you'd develop Stockholm Syndrome so soon. Or at all. Would... would you excuse me for a moment?" He rushed behind one of the large filing cabinets and started pretending like he was doing something very important.

The man on the other side fell silent, and Doc heard him flop back onto the cot. "At least tell me why I'm here."

"I can't tell you."

"Because you don't know or you won't tell?" Doc didn't respond, only rustled a couple of papers around. There it was, the small notes he did have about the patient, and one other thing. "Well, can I get a key for these cuffs?"

"No."

"A spare bobby pin? My bangs are out of control right now."

"No."

"How about your number?" And there was the redness flooding back into his cheeks. He took a deep breath and walked out from behind the cabinet. He kept his hands professionally folded behind his back and clutching something.

"Franklin, I don't think my employers would appreciate that."

"Aw, come on. Live a little."

Doc grit his teeth. "I'm trying to." For a second, Donut's smirk dropped. It returned in the blink of an eye, and he rolled onto his side to face Doc. Doc sighed. "Listen, if things go well, you shouldn't have to worry about getting hurt or killed. All you have to do if cooperate." He shifted his gaze from the wall to Donut, and quickly back at the wall again. Damn it all, he was going to have to come to terms with the fact that this guy was attractive, otherwise he'll spend all his time trying to deny it. "But there's only so much I can tell you. I'm not looking to piss off the guys that took you, and you shouldn't either."

Donut snorted. "You really think I'm going to-" He was cut short by the sound of a door being broken down on another floor, followed by angry shouting. Doc's eyes went wide, and he rushed to Donut's side. Before Donut could say anything, Doc took the needle out from behind his back and stuck it in Donut's neck.

Doc frantically started to unlock the handcuff that was attached to Donut as he fell unconscious. "I'm sorry, but I can't let you escape. For your sake and mine. Sorry." His cellphone started ringing in his pocket, and he fumbled it while trying to answer. "DuFresne- Yeah, yeah I know, the alarm. There's a group outside of where we're- seriously? But the files-" there was an angry bark of a command from the other end of the line- "Alright fine, have it your way. I'm on my way out."

He snapped the cheap phone shut before rushing to get Donut and himself close to the fire escape. He looked, and saw a car pull up to the side of the fire escape. He shut the window behind him, and saw more armed mooks storm the building behind whoever just got in. Great, he just needed to get both of them safely down the stairs and-

He froze against the brick wall as the door to the other room burst wide open.

Grif and the others rushed into an empty room and shouted in frustration. "He was supposed to be here! Why are we leaving already?!"

Tucker shouted back just as angrily. "I didn't expect a small army to follow us in! We can't find Donut if we're dead, Grif!"

Carolina and Simmons started pushing filing cabinets and an old bed in front of the door. Carolina paused to snag a few folders that flew out of the cabinets. Simmons followed suit, grabbing fistfuls of papers before speeding past Tucker and Grif. There were gunshots and heavy footsteps outside the door as he pushed open a window that led to a balcony. "We can get out to the next building through here, and we'll run back to the van."

Grif would have tore his hair out, if someone didn't start furiously ramming the barricaded door. He bit the inside of his mouth. "Okay, let's just go. I am NOT dying here."

Simmons hopped across the gap and forced the other door open. Tucker and Carolina soon leaped over and readied the path to the next jump. He turned back to Grif, and saw him go rigid. He was perched on the edge of the balcony, stiff with fear. "Grif? Grif, come on."

He choked out a reply. "I can't move. I'm gonna fall if I do this." His eyes fixed themselves on the concrete that laid thirty feet beneath them. Grif all of a sudden wanted off this crazy ride, but he couldn't figure out where the exit was. The banging on the door got even more persistent.

And then, Simmons's voice rang out loud and clear through the noise.

"Jump."


	5. My Chapter Title Was Long Enough for AO3

Doc blinked as he slowly woke from his adrenaline field daze. He blinked, and the realization dawned on him like the morning sun over a mile-wide forest fire.

He leaned back in the seat of the car he had apparently been driving, and collected the few facts that he had laying in front of him. They were as such:

He had just stolen a car, and ran away from his abductors.

There was an unconscious hostage slowly becoming conscious in the backseat of said stolen car, and

He was parked in his own goddamn driveway.

With that in mind, he threw his car door open and dragged a drowsy Donut to his front steps. There was a voice in the back of his head, telling him that he really shouldn't be here. That it was generally a stupid idea to flee from someone who was probably chasing you by heading home for some tea.

Then Doc remembered this was the same voice that told him that the 'Publishing House' was really just a great career opportunity that needed to be pursued.

About ten minutes later, Donut was sluggishly sipping some Darjeeling tea while Doc searched through files on his computer. He held his chin in his hand while the cursor flew across the screen.

He sighed through his nose. "This was such a bad idea."

Donut downed the last of his tea. "As opposed to...?" He trailed off.

"I don't know, something that isn't going to get us killed!" He turned away from the monitor and faced Donut. He covered his eyes with a hand, and rubbed his face in defeat. "No one ever warns you about this before you go to med school."

"They don't warn you about the debt either." Donut got up to make another cup of tea. "Do you want a cup? You seem to be in an 'English Breakfast' mood." He floated around Doc's kitchen, while Doc sat baffled. Not only did their situation not make any sense, but Doc couldn't wrap his brain around this guy's carefree attitude. Then something in his head clicked, and Doc took his hand off his face as his brow as it struck him.

"You're faking it."

Donut became stiff as he reached for the water. "I don't fake happy. It's just how I am." He brought over two cups of tea and sat one in front of Doc. "That, and yoga. It's really soothing to the body and mind."

"Ah, thank you- No, no, wait. I don't get it. You have to have been taken for a reason."

Donut shrugged. "I was in a bad place and needed money. It was a drug thing."

"No, it wasn't." Doc sighed again, and took a sip of tea. "The guys that they used to pull in, they were beaten and almost dead. I've performed more miracles than I ever really wanted to in my life. And then you show up, not a scratch on you, and suddenly they're freaking out-"

"It's not like they were good at their job anyways." Donut spat back, and stopped to bite his tongue. Doc's eyes got wider, and Donut made an attempt at appearing relaxed.

Doc spoke up. "Listen, you wanted to know about the guys that took you. Well, they took me too not too long ago. I... actually don't know that much about them."

Donut held his chin in both his hands and smiled at Doc. "Take your time, Doctor."

"There were files that I had, instructions that lead to a website. It might be able to tell us where they are, if they updated it. I can't be sure it's safe, though. It's just that they never really talked to me. I can't imagine that they trusted me, so I can't trust what I do have to go on."

"What do you have?"

Doc got out of his seat and beckon Donut to follow him. "Have you heard of the Dark Net?"

"Who hasn't?" It was the biggest craze for those that were too involved in the internet to go back. It's also a drug thing, as far as Doc cared.

"They had a page they showed me, filled with the types of drugs they had, or if they were open for business. They told me that's where they got most of their sales." Doc brought up a new type of browser, and started clicking through various links in a routine manner. "Every time they get paranoid, they add another step to get to their website, but I should be able to-"

It's gone. Doc was nearly frantic as he clicked around the screen. It wasn't that they had hidden it again, the entire thing was gone. Donut made a small sound of disappointment. "Well, that sucks. Someone must have gotten to it."

"How? Do you know how hard it is to take something like that down?" No wonder they sounded panicked on the phone.

"Oh, I couldn't possibly know." Donut's voice had a weird lilt to it. "It would probably take something incredibly advanced, considering how well they hid it." He snorted. "Or tried to hide."

"There it is again." Doc stopped clicking and raised an eyebrow at Donut. "What are you talking about? You're being very strange-"

Donut ran his hand through Doc's hair playfully, and Doc's brain stuttered to a halt. Donut giggled, "Sorry, you're hair just looked so soft. Do you put product in it?"

"Uh, I've been trying more natural shampoos lately. They're supposed to be more environmentally friendly, and I think it's really making my hair healthier." Doc's brain had finally jogged back to the front of his head, reminding him that this was not the best time for flirting. "Anyways, we can't stay here. I'll pack a few things, and we'll head south. We might have some time if their page is really deleted, considering they won't be able to get in contact with quite a few important people."

"I wouldn't count on that fact." Donut said, eyeing the monitor. He had switched to a different window, with a chat box. In it, a message with a link read:

'I have the information you wanted. Are you going to follow them, or should I take care of them myself?'

Doc clicked the link hesitantly. Were they talking about the people that had broken in earlier today? He scrolled through a few pictures of people he didn't recognize when Donut mumbled something. He looked up, and saw Donut's face had gone white. He looked like he was about to faint. "H-hey, are you alright?"

"No." It was soft, and frightened. Doc stood up, and Donut turned away from the computer. He steadied himself with the counter. "No no no no no no, this wasn't what was supposed to happen!"

Doc stared at the pictures again, bewildered. Quickly, he pulled out the phone he still had in his jacket pocket. He snapped a picture of the screen and pictures before walking around and unplugging the computer directly from the wall. Still leaning over the counter, Doc could hear Donut whisper to himself. "What the fuck does he think he's doing?"

"Donut." He looked over at Doc. "Do you know them?"

There was a knock on the door.


	6. Kahlua and Sleep Deprivation

"Is this a bad time to mention that I don't know how to shoot a gun?" Grif asked.

Carolina stared through the windshield like she was ready to drive the van off of a bridge. She settled for making a sharp turn into an alleyway, knocking Grif across the van and onto Simmons.

They scrambled to sit up again while Carolina shut the car off and got out. She motioned at Tucker, who then nodded and ran to the end of the alleyway. She threw open the van doors, wincing when Grif and Simmons fell out of the car.

In the distance, Carolina could hear police sirens close to the cars that had been chasing them. She prayed that they would buy her enough to time to hide. Grif and Simmons were standing, albeit wobbly and staring at each other strangely. She grabbed what bags were the most necessary. "Grab what you can and follow me. There's a place I know we can stay at for now."

They all ran up to Tucker, and Carolina rounded the corner into an even narrower alley. It ended at a brand new chain link fence. Carolina swore out loud, before shoving her bags at Tucker and scaling the fence. Tucker quickly tossed the bags to Carolina from over the top and knelt down, cupping his hands. Grif coughed.

"That's... not gonna work. I'm a bit too heavy for-" He yelped as Tucker got up and promptly hoisted him over fence. He heard a high pitched squeak as Tucker did the same with Simmons, and he held his arms towards him to prevent the lanky redhead from falling forward.

Tucker lifted himself over with an impossible grace and a smug look on his face. "I used to throw beefcakes out of clubs for a living, dude."

There was a loud splintering sound, and they turned to see Carolina kicking open an old wooden door. They crowded inside, and found an even older bar inside. Dust covered every oak countertop and creaky barstool. All the windows were boarded up, the only light coming in from the broken door behind them. Tucker was quick to find the lights, and even quicker to board up the door.

Carolina finally slowed down once the door was secured, and paused to take a long breath. She spoke, and the sudden volume of her voice made Simmons jump out of his skin.

"What do you MEAN you can't shoot a gun?!"

Doc didn't like strangers at the best of times. Med school was both amazing and detrimental to his social life. You learn bedside manner, but the more he interacted with people this way, the less he came to trust them. And the constant work didn't help him make friends like the College Experience guaranteed.

The knocking at his door with the implication of an ex-boss who murdered his past employees wasn't helping his social situation, either. His brain filled with panic, he leaped towards the back door and stopped suddenly. What if someone was back there too, waiting for him? Was there any way that they could really go?

The knocking at the door got louder, more insistent. Soon enough, it would turn into a broken door and two homicide victims. Donut had crept past the kitchen, and entering the hall behind Doc. "We have to get out of here." He whispered to Doc, and his mind reeled with possibilities. Every one of them ended in death as his mind warped them around.

"They're everywhere." He was panicking worse than usual, his chest hurt and weeks of little sleep brought itself to attention in the form of a sudden daze. Donut grabbed him, alarmed.

"Doc? Doc! Are you alright?" Why hadn't the door been broken? He didn't care, it would happen soon enough.

Doc nearly slurred. "We can't run." His vision blurred as he tried to stay upright. The knocking was so loud, he almost couldn't hear Donut's voice over the thunder.

Donut looked around, focused. "Is there a closet or basement we can hide?"

"There's a crawlspace in the attic, on the left next to the green boxes." He felt strong arms push him towards the attic, and despite his state they made it up. He also somehow managed to end up in the crawlspace, but didn't remember using his legs to do it. He could only hear Donut's confused voice through the pressure in his head.

"The knocking stopped."

And then there was darkness.

Grif stared at the laptop screen, frustrated. The signal hadn't updated since the first set of coordinates they had gotten. He knew that Donut couldn't be there anymore, the police would have found him by now. He looked up at Carolina and Tucker, who were talking quietly at the countertop. She looked more distracted, and Grif couldn't help but wonder how she knew to hide in this specific abandoned bar. She glanced at Grif, and sighed gently before turning back to Tucker. They needed to stay quiet to stay hidden, so she let her frustration from before slide. That, and the commotion had kicked up enough dust that everyone broke out into violent coughing fits.

He looked down at the computer again, guilty. He would have been mad at himself too. There had been times when Grif had to protect Donut but didn't even know how to hold a gun. Afterall, he had angry southern man that constantly pointed his shotgun at anyone who even shouted on his floor. After a while, Grif had started to rely on that more than he cared to admit. He played with the keyboard a bit more before deciding that everything was working, and that Donut was going to be okay as long as it was working.

He felt Simmons sit next to him, holding a dusty bottle. He stammered as he spoke. "I u-understand that this is really not the time, but I figured you could hold onto this, for when this is all over."

Grif looked at the bottle and grinned. "Kahlua? How did you know?"

He smiled and rubbed the back of his neck. "I remember from that night when we got drunk." His smiled dropped as he remembered that night again, and he dropped his hand. Grif saw him start to retreat into himself again, and placed a hand on Simmons's back. He jumped, and looked at Grif.

"It's not your fault," Grif comforted him, "and I know you're putting all the blame on yourself. But you're not the one who took him." He paused, and patted Simmons on the back roughly. "Tell you what," he continued, "when we get whoever took Donut, you can have the first shot."

Simmons laughed a little. "What an honor. Are you sure?"

Grif grinned widely. "I'll try to hold myself back. Something tells me you hit harder than you look like you do. In the meantime," He reached over and took the bottle out of Simmons hands, "I'll hold onto this. We don't want you getting smashed like last time."

Simmons huffed at him. "Are you calling me a lightweight?"

"Of course not! I'm just keeping this so you don't get accidentally tipsy from smelling it."

Simmons pushed him away and crossed his arms. He tried to give him a cold shoulder, but couldn't help the grin that wouldn't leave his face.

Sitting on the other side of Grif, the laptop made a small beeping noise that went unnoticed. The screen flashed a new set of coordinates for a few seconds, and suddenly went black.

Doc's neighbor stood at Doc's door for another minute, disappointed but not surprised. He knew that Doc didn't usually answer the door, but Doc had been missing for a while now, and the other neighbors had started to wonder. He walked away from the door, and thought he saw movement in the attic window. He couldn't be sure, and he couldn't help but worry. Plus it was his job as a neighbor to get into his own neighbor's business.

Doc's computer had been shut off for a while now, as it was the safest state it could be in at the moment. Had it been on, however, Doc and Donut might have seen the new message from that mysterious person on the other side of the chatbox. They would have read only two words.

'Found them.'


	7. Like A Breath Of Stale Air

The first thing that Doc saw when he opened his eyes was the light that filtered through the wooden planks in his attic. Groggily, he looked at the kicked up dust that caught the light around him. It was almost pretty, as still and serene as a dusty attic could be.

He took a second to gather his thoughts, something he needed to do more often. He had just woken up in the attic, which was a step above the dark basement he had assumed he would have ended up in by now. It was still blurry, how he managed to get up here so quickly or at all. He shifted, and realized there were two arms wrapped loosely around his own body. His eyes went wide. He moved to lift the arms up, when the person's they belonged to stirred.

"Hey," Donut's voice was soft and concerned, "are you okay now?"

Doc ran a hand through his sweat soaked hair, and put the last piece together. Donut must have carried him up here before he passed out. They were supposed to be running from someone, right? So why was Doc sat up and leaning back into Donut's chest? He moved to get off of Donut and turn to face him. He groaned when he hit his head off of the low roof of the attic.

Donut's voice didn't lose it's concern. "Take a second, Doc. You were in pretty bad shape not too long ago." He laughed to himself. "This must be really weird. I mean, I've gotten used to waking up in strange places with strange people."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." Doc had finally turned all the way around to face Donut, and something caught his eye.

In case anyone ever asked Doc (which they most likely wouldn't) what blonde hair looked like in dusty light, he would have told them ethereal, and bright. Doc stopped gathering his thoughts, let his brain stay an unorganized mess for a little while longer. He immediately started to wish he learned how to talk to people in college. After a moment, Donut shifted, and averted his eyes from Doc's. "Don't worry about it. You're done enough worrying for right now." He looked towards the light coming through the wood. "Whoever had you before, I have a feeling that we either aren't a priority, or they're dead."

That seemed to shake Doc enough to make him respond. "Dead?"

"Hopefully." Donut then grimaced. "Sorry, that's a little dark. It's been a rough, well, a rough couple of weeks."

As Donut resumed tidying up his thoughts, he realized that yes, he was still staring at Donut. He tried to turn slightly away from Donut, only to bump his head into the roof again. Nice.

"You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine." He rubbed his forehead, hoping his face wasn't going red again. "I wanted to say, um. Thank you. For, you know, helping me out back there." God, he didn't know what he wanted to say, but he was trying.

"Ah, that's okay. Afterall, I couldn't just leave you like that. I have morals." He rubbed his arm, not looking at Doc. "At least, I think I do."

Doc laughed at that. Slowly this time, he crawled towards the opening of the crawlspace. "I hear ya. Anyways, we should really get going." He moved the door open, Donut in the corner of his eye and- was he blushing? Doc could see his pinker-than-normal face in the corner of his eye, and decided he would leave that thought alone until they were actually safe. He started to crawl out the opening when he felt something tug at his coat. He looked back, and Donut was right behind him.

Donut seemed to hesitate, but then opened his mouth. "You're welcome. I mean, it's wasn't any problem. Just," he hesitated again, "just let me know if you think you're gonna pass out again."

Doc raised an eyebrow. "Considering the circumstances, I feel like I should be the one saving you. Since you were just a hostage."

Donut smirked back at him. "Considering the circumstances? I just carried you bridal-style up a ladder." He lightly pushed Doc through the crawlspace door. "And you were a hostage too."

They arrived at the end of the attic's ladder a few minutes later, and brushed the dust off of themselves. Donut called after Doc as he strode towards the back door. "So, where to now?"

"I have no idea."

"Great." He walked next to Doc and grinned as they left the house. "Let's go."

"So, can I ask?" Tucker, for once, was hesitant.

"You're going to anyways." Carolina replied flatly.

He gestured around himself, to the dusty bar that hid everyone. "How did you know about this place?"

"It was just somewhere I used to frequent, back when I had breaks in between protecting witnesses. I'd come here every once in awhile, until I was friends with every regular." Her face didn't change as she talked. "It closed down a while ago over safety issues."

"Safety issues? You didn't start up any fights there, did you?" Tucker joked.

"It wasn't like that. The bar caught fire once, someone thought it would be a good idea to play with a lighter by a cabinet full of booze. I wasn't there at the time, but I noticed how less and less people would come in. Until it just, stopped." She shrugged. "I do miss coming back here sometimes. But I don't think it'll be brought back after being abandoned for so long."

Tucker nodded. "That's a shame. Though, I was hoping you had a story of someone starting a fight and you putting them into the ground."

"No, but I'm sure you do." Carolina snarked back. Tucker laughed, but kept a sort of knowing smirk on his face. There was a tense second before Carolina relented. "Alright, let's hear it then."

Tucker grinned, and Carolina regretted her choice. "Okay, so it's a typical night at this greasy club no one's heard of. There was a fight breaking out towards the back, and I'm there in a second. A few guys picking on this shorter guy. I go to break it up, and the short dude jumps on one of the big guys. He's wailing on the guy" Tucker swung his arm around himself quickly, "and I have to fight to pull the bastard off of this 6 foot goliath. It's fine, they other guys leave, and I'm left with this beat up dude who honestly needs sleep more than he needs another drink. But I buy him another, he tells me that his entire life has been plagued by bad luck. The only thing that he ever got right was the silver watch that he won in a bet that he might have cheated at."

Carolina stopped him. "Where is this going?"

Tucker held up his hands in a halting motion. "I'm getting there. So, at some point I remember that I have a job, and I leave him at the bar. He stays there for only a few hours, goes to leave wasted. I stop him before he leaves, because I didn't know if those guys were outside or down the corner waiting for him. I call him a cab, and he's just staring at me while I'm on the phone. I get off the phone, and he asks me something."

Carolina found herself wrapped up in his story. "What was it?"

Tucker paused to take a long breath. "He looked at me, and asked me 'Have you ever felt that pressure in your gut when you're about to make a bad decision, but you can't stop it?" He put his hands down, and pulled something out of his pocket. "He gave me the watch, and walked away before the cab even got there." He rolled the watch around in his hand.

"Did you ever talk to him again?"

Tucker looked up, and shrugged. "Nope."

Carolina furrowed her brow, annoyed at Tucker. "Wait, what does that have to do with this bar?"

"Because," he gently shook the watch at her, "Patience is the greatest virtue you can have. I'm going to see him again. He's gonna get this watch back. And eventually," he gestured to the bar, "this place won't be abandoned anymore. Even if it isn't a bar, nothing stays the same forever."

Carolina felt shaken despite herself. "Wow, Tucker. I didn't expect that from you."

"Well, I'm not usually a philosopher. But it's not good to think that things will never change." He sighed, and looked over at the other side of the bar. His eyes locked onto Grif, who had the laptop in his lap. "Anything yet?" he called over.

"Maybe." Grif said worryingly. "The computer turned itself off a few minutes ago, I'm getting the program back up and running." He looked at Simmons. "You wouldn't happen to have an extra battery or anything, would you?"

"I can look for something." Carolina replied instead. Grif nodded sheepishly, still awkward from the "can't-shoot-a-gun" discussion. She rummaged through the bags they had brought in, and pushed Grif's jacket aside. Her hand closed over a small device that was in the pocket, and curiosity overcame her judgement. She had almost reached inside when Grif shouted.

"We have another coordinate!" He leaped off of his seat to give the laptop to Carolina as she ran over.

She grabbed it, and recognized part of the numbers on the screen without looking it up. "This is near the police station." She took the laptop with her to a bag of her own, and started pulling out devices. Her face was focused, but confused.

Grif could have jumped over the fence outside from pure joy. "What if the police got him? I could grab him, and this would all be over." He stopped beaming as he noticed Carolina's face. "Why aren't we leaving?"

"Let me find exactly where it is." The fingers that weren't working on finding where the signal was pointing towards tapped on the countertop.

Grif waited about four seconds before asking Carolina if she found it. She sighed through her nose, and paused to turn to Grif. "Grif, listen to me." She fought hard to keep the grin off of her face. "Patience is the greatest virtue you can have." She turned to Tucker, who didn't fight to keep the grin off of his face. "Pack everything up. We're going back. And this time, we're getting Donut."


	8. The Law of Accelerating Returns

Grif didn't remember what the speed limit on the road from a highway into a highly populated but not very popular city was. As they sped into such a city, Grif realized he didn't remember a lot of things these days.

His mind reeled at the thought of this finally being over. Maybe, the police really had taken care of the situation. After all, both Donut and Grif had come through scrapes before, and the police didn't even have to be involved. He did worry about how the police would treat someone who's been in drug problem situations before, yet didn't call the police. He had to imagine there was protocol for something like that. But he couldn't imagine it would be quick or kind.

They rushed past the blur of a speed limit sign, and then another. Simmons fidgeted in his seat, and Tucker had grit his teeth while Carolina pressed hard on the gas pedal. They were nearing the station, and Grif's stomach was doing flips. Whether that was from the thought of everyone being out of danger or the car's speed was unclear. Simmons reached over to Grif, placed a light hand on his shoulder. He let himself smile softly, reassuring Simmons as much as he was reassuring him. Grif held tight to the door and kept his eyes on the road in front of him, but felt confident.

He couldn't understand how quickly things can take a turn for the worst.

The police could help. That's what they're there for, right? Doc repeated this question and variations of it in his mind as he drove down the street. The small amount of sleep aroused some function in his brain, and he remembered the backstreets behind his house that would lead them to the police station downtown. He only had to cut down a few back roads and onto the highway, and they could avoid whatever mess what no doubt barreling towards his house.

Donut, despite the bumps of the dirt road, was leaned forward. His hand covered his mouth, and his eyes seemed stuck in thought. Doc tried to keep his eyes on the road, but the suspicion he had before poked around in the back of his brain. He made a note to save doubting Donut until later. They had to trust each other if either of them was going to get out of this unscathed.

The highway approached quickly, and the road smoothed itself out underneath them. Trust. That was going to be hard for Doc, but he already knew that. Donut was still hunched forward, his forehead wrinkled in frustration. Without looking at him, Doc reached over and tried to place his hand on Donut's shoulder.

He missed, and his hand landed on Donut's knee. Donut's face changed, and he gave Doc a look that Doc refused to acknowledge out of embarrassment. "Ah, sorry. I was trying to be comforting." His hand didn't move. "Uhm, it's going to be okay, okay?" He stared at the highway, and Donut smiled at Doc.

"Thanks."

"Shit!" Tucker shouted, and everyone braced themselves. Carolina slammed the brakes a second later, and the car almost flipped over in the street. Grif hurled forward against the back of Tucker's seat. As he bit the back of a headrest, he heard other cars drive around the van.

"What's going on? Who is this?" Simmons asked. His voice was high pitched and shaky.

Grif threw himself back, and saw groups of people get out a dark car next to him. "Simmons, get down!" He pushed Simmons down towards the floor while Carolina lurched the car into reverse. It only moved several feet until another car blocked in the back.

Tucker pushed his own door open, knocking one guy out with it and swinging at another. Carolina was shouting something, but Grif couldn't focus on what was going on as he more of them crowd his door. Wait, why were they only coming on one side? Grif blinked, and Grif understood why. He got close to Simmons, and tried to speak past the shouting so he could be heard. "Stay here."

"What are you saying?" Simmons replied, confused.

"Listen, I'm going to do something very stupid, okay?" Simmons started to protest, but Grif stopped him. "Don't let them get the laptop." He paused. "Don't let them get you. I have an idea."

Before he could say anything else, he was yanked out of the car. As he was being pulled out, one of the cars that had surrounded them was shoved violently by another speeding car. The last thing that Grif would see before his vision went black was Carolina peeling out through the gap.

Pop Quiz! What do you do if you find yourself driving into an ambush that is most likely made specifically for you? Do you:

Give up (Congrats, you're Grif)

Try to back out, only to find a car already there, and curse the people who brought you into this world (You're Carolina)

Come out of the car, guns and fists blazing (You're either impervious to bullets or Tucker)

Well, if you're Doctor Frank DuFresne, you do none of these things. As soon as the cars started Doc, Donut froze in place. They were fast, and Doc whispered to Donut. "What do I do?" Once again, he didn't know what to do. Doc slowed the car, panic coursing through his veins. He thought about what it was like to get taken before. These weren't the same guys. They didn't even wear masks.

Like they knew it wouldn't matter if Doc saw their faces. One of them got out of the car, wearing a sadistically smug grin. Doc glanced at Donut, and saw pure panic and fear on his face. For once in his life, time slowed for Doc. He turned back to the road, hands still gripping the wheel. "Get in the back." Donut jumped into the backseat without question. Donut's terror filled eyes still fresh in his mind, Doc took a deep breath.

And floored the gas. It jumped forward, into the grinning man and his car. The impact was enough to push one of the cars and make an opening for Doc's car, and he rocketed through it. He drove past everything and everyone, including another pile-up of strange and dangerous black vehicles that Doc got a bit too close too. He swore he could feel the engine tearing itself apart as he held the pedal down, and sideswiped one of the cars, pushing an opening for someone very desperate for one.

Donut was still huddled in the bottom of the backseat, but climbed into it when he didn't hear gunshots. He looked out the back window for a moment, before the speed of the car told him that if he stayed like that he was going to smash his head on something if Doc braked. Doc wasn't able to see his face then, but if he had, he would have seen the face of a man who just witnessed his friend get kidnapped.


	9. Who Even Limits Chapter Titles, Just Why

"Doc?"

"Yeah?"

"Did we hit someone with the car just now?"

Doc's pale-knuckled grip refused to loosen on the steering wheel. "Maybe?"

Donut was still leaned over in the seat, his hands over most of his face. Doc's arm twitched, and he thought about reaching over like he had before... well, before they had just ran someone over. It was still a lot to process for Doc, and he wasn't even sure he had started to really let it sink in. It looked like one of the only ways he was going to do anything was to take things one small bit of information at a time.

Donut spoke up again. "I think it's time I told you the whole truth."

Doc nodded. He supposed he could do that too. His eyes started to scan the area around the car, looking for anywhere they could stop and hide. Hiding had seemed to work better than running, at any rate. "No secrets?"

Donut sighed, his body limp and still hunched over. "No secrets." He looked up as Doc turned into a motel parking lot. "Maybe it'll make sense if you hear all of it."

Carolina couldn't help but think of her parents during times like this, and she hated it more than anything else. She paced around a barren room, and in front of Simmons. Simmons wasn't moving, frozen stiff and wide-eyed, his hands folded in his lap with fingers tightly locked. More guilt piled itself in Carolina's head as he sat stock-still on a cheap hotel bed. But right now wasn't the time for an unprofessional therapy session.

As far as Carolina could tell, it wasn't the right time for anything other than revenge. But she was stuck, and two of the people that had the biggest edge in getting Donut back we're probably in the same place as him. And not in the good, "currently saving the day" kind of way. The guilt would have weighed her down entirely, if her own acidic anger wasn't eating away at it constantly. There was nowhere that either of them could go. Going to her old employer was out of the question, and she didn't have the guns or authority that she used to. And suffice to say, she wasn't the maverick that her father always said her mother could be. Carolina bit her lip. Her father never really talked about anything else but her, even so long after she died.

She stopped pacing to take another look at the laptop. It hadn't updated since last time, and Carolina didn't know how much she trusted it. But it was more than nothing, and if Grif and Tucker were gone, then she had to figure out how to get them back. Bugged or not, she couldn't trash it just yet.

And then there was that truck from before. It had crashed in a way that let her escape, and that seemed too intentional to let go of. She wondered if it was even useful to think about it, and decided it wasn't. At least, not while Grif and Tucker were still gone.

...And Simmons still hasn't moved. The unending thirst for vengeance slowed down enough for that guilt to come back, and she sighed. "Hey."

Simmons didn't look up, but murmured something Carolina couldn't hear.

Maybe there was time for some therapy. It's not like Carolina could do much if her only lead was a human statue. She tried again. "Listen-"

"You know this is my fault, right?"

"That doesn't make any sense." Doc drew the curtains closed, and leaned by door.

Donut bounced his leg repeatedly, his arms folded across his chest as he stared into the floor. "It doesn't make sense because no one's ever heard of something like this before. But it's the truth." He unfolded one arm and bit his knuckle. "And because I wasn't careful, Grif's going to get hurt."

"You keep talking about this like you know where he is-"

"I saw him!" Donut threw his arms out in frustration. "We crashed into that car, there was an opening in the middle, and he was there! He got taken, and I have to do something about it." He crossed his arms again, scowling.

Doc rubbed his eyes, calmer despite the worsening situation they were in. "I don't know what you expect me to do."

"Well, if we're going to fix this, I need you to get the wifi password."

"Isn't there guest wifi?"

"It isn't strong enough for what I need to do." He got up, and walked towards the curtains. "There's nobody outside, so we should be able to-" he stopped himself, and pushed the curtains open by a few more inches.

"What, what is it?" Doc went to peer through the opening when Donut placed a hand on his chest. He stopped, and saw the shadow of a person walk away from the door they came out of and down towards lobby.

Donut walked back, and shut the curtains again. "Okay, change of plans." He walked past Doc and placed his hand on the doorknob. "We're going into the room two doors left of us. Stay behind me."

Doc reached past Donut and put his arm in front of him. "Why? Do you know what happens every time we leave somewhere?"

"Yeah, I know. But I know what I'm doing." He gently pushed Doc's arm out of the way. "I just need you to trust me." He stared straight at the door, pointedly not looking at Donut. "And then, after all this, you won't have to deal with me ever again."

Doc wanted to reply and say that wasn't what he meant at all, but Donut had already opened the door and was walking fast to the right. Doc patted the pocket that held his key, and followed quickly behind him.

He was about to turn back and drag Donut with him when he stopped at the door that other person had just left. They stood there, for a second, before Doc poked Donut in the side. "Hey, are you gonna knock or what?"

"Just wait." They stood there for another few seconds, and Donut heard a strange electronic noise come from inside the room, followed by the shouts of a confused and panicked person.

"What's going on?"

Donut smirked wickedly, and Doc's throat tightened. "Just a little dramatic presentation."

Donut couldn't even knock a second time before Simmons threw open the door and pulled them both in.


	10. Alright, From The Top

Carolina held up her hands, and took a deep breath. Simmons tried to do the same, while Doc sat next to him with a steady hand on his back. Simmons voice was less shaky than it was before. "I'm sorry about all that."

Carolina spoke calmly. "It's alright. But I need you to start from the beginning." She lowered one hand, and pointed at Donut with the other. "And this time we'll take turns."

Donut shrugged, and Simmons took a longer breath. "Okay, the beginning." He stopped. "Do we mean when Donut showed up and you were gone, or way before that when Donut got taken-"

"How about a year before this all started?" Donut interrupted. Carolina gave him a look, but Simmons nodded.

"Right." He sat up straighter. "A year ago, Donut and I came up with an idea for a computer program. It was like a keylogger, all it did was collect data on pages that had certain, types of information." He clasped his hands. "It never worked the way we wanted it to, topics we wanted it to find were either too broad or so specific that little would turn up."

Doc looked confused for a moment. "Why would you need something like that when there's tons of search engine's readily available?"

Simmons didn't respond, only gestured to Donut. Donut stepped forward, taking the torch. "To get to things that search engines can't."

Carolina raised her eyebrows. "The Deep Web?"

Donut waved a finger in the air. "Close, but not quite." He smirked. "We wanted a program that could find data on the Dark Net, which is much more insidious than just a series of web results that you can't find on Google." He looked at the ground. "But, it wasn't as easy as I'm making it sound. So we had to start small." He looked back up at Simmons.

Simmons picked it back up. "Certain... sites and users used the same kind of ways to encrypt themselves. Not all of them, but there were patterns and obvious methods popped up." He shrugged his shoulders loosely, relaxing slightly. "We figured if it the Dark Net was made and manipulated by humans, there was a way to backtrack it. Afterall, nothing is really destroyed on the internet, and corrupted data is still data."

"But why?" Carolina mind reeled with the possible answers as Simmons and Donut glanced at each other.

Donut snorted. "The Good Samaritan in me wants to say we did it to help others, stop people from getting hurt."

Simmons voice was weary now. "There was a professor that wanted to put in a good word for us and our project, and promised that we could get a large grant if we made good on our 'Dark Net Bot'." He sighed. "After things started picking up, the project itself seemed too dangerous."

"I'll say." Doc thought back to how his employers were so adamant about those files, and wondered if this was what they were talking about.

"See, you can't make something that collects so much hidden information and not have powerful people want to have their hands on it." Donut explained. "Towards the end of the project, we decided that making something like this might lead even worse problems. So we changed it. It still found illegal sites, and was about as fast as a computer from the 1970s, but instead of keeping the data, it learned how to shut them down."

"Woah, woah." Carolina stopped him. "What do you mean, it 'learned'? You would have had to code something like that for it to work, right?"

"It was so easy." Simmons mumbled out loud. "It already knew, I still don't know how but it already knew how to take a site down as soon as it found it. It felt like it was advancing exponentially, and all we had to do was give it orders. Like a person who could write a novel by endlessly doing word search puzzles."

"An artificial intelligence, and we practically stumbled upon it. If we shut down the websites before the police got to them, we could also throw away the information right after it. As long as both of us kept the code to ourselves, the AI would stay safe, it would stay unmodified and no one would get found out."

Carolina stopped them both. "You changed a program that was supposed to collect data, only to throw it away."

Donut sounded defensive. "We did what the law couldn't, with a bot that we couldn't trust them with."

"The site I was trying to get to at my house!" Doc exclaimed.

"Bingo." Donut winked at him cheekily. "We had a good grip on a technology that could have made us heroes. Had we figured out how to protect the program, you would have seen us nominated for a Peace Prize."

"It didn't last," Simmons choked out. "We got found out by some of the people we had shut down, and before we could do anything about it, I got attacked."

"And coming in front stage left was that ruggedly handsome bouncer who we hired to keep us safe." Donut cocked his head to the side with an amused expression on his face. "Lot of good that did us."

"And so were here." Carolina finished. "Sorry about, uh, you having to rescue yourself. Pretty sure I should have done that." She said awkwardly to Donut.

"Don't worry about it. Besides," he grinned, "Prince Charming over here has been quite the white knight for me."

Doc smiled. "Well, minus the whole fainting spell I had."

"It happens."

Simmons interjected. "There's just one more thing." He stood up. "If you and Doc are here, then where are Grif and Tucker?"

Donut licked his lips, and rubbed his hands together. "That's the new million dollar question."

Doc tapped his fingers on his chin. "Do you think we could use the program to find where he's at?"

"Probably not. If they thought we could, they wouldn't let themselves get caught." Simmons admitted. "You would need someone on the inside, someone who knew how to get in and open up any kind of connection."

"I might know somebody who can help." Carolina said. "But it's going to take some research."

"Well, you've come to the right place." Donut said as he searched through the laptop. A few seconds later, a page filled with ominous government logos and red text was on the screen. "Which division?"


	11. Dillon!

Waking up with his hands restrained was starting to become a habit that Grif really didn't want to acquire. As he shifted around, looking around a barren and gray room, he wondered if he has actually even a person. If he honestly did have a purpose in this world other than being a cosmic chewtoy. He shifted again, and heard the chains that were tethering his wrists and barely giving his arms any room to move. He pulled on them, frustrated, and looker closer around the room. It didn't really have the dungeon feel, it had much better lighting and even a few metal chairs laid about. The unkempt basement he was in did have two heavy doors on either side of Grif. He worried that he wasn't the first person in here. He then worried more because while no one was in the room with him, that meant that neither was Tucker.

He shouldn't have done this. It had to be said. At the very least, he should have done something different. All he wanted to do was save his friend, to do something for once instead of letting Donut deal with his own problems. Not to mention, Grif lamented, that ignoring those problems was what got both of them where they were in the first place. Grif rolled his tongue around his parched mouth and cursed himself. His arms ached from the position they were in, and Grif didn't know why he even bothered sometimes. Maybe that was the problem, it just wasn't worth the effort he had been giving it. "Look what happens when you start to give a shit." he said out loud. Anger and bitterness shot through Grif, and he pulled hard against the chains behind him. Nothing happened, and he grit his teeth before pulling again. There was a sound, like metal grinding on brick, that made Grif go still. Behind him, he wiggled the chains and heard it again, heard it moving.

As he geared up to try and pull the chain farther out of the wall, a door on the right of Grif opened. Tucker was pushed through, mussed up and grinning. "Hey, you're awake!" Someone behind him shoved one of his shoulders. "Oh, keep your shirt on, Schwarzenegger, I'm moving." He said to the giant of a man leading Tucker inside.

"Tucker?" What the hell is going on?" As Tucker was moved to another set of chains, he felt his own being fiddled with. They unlocked behind his head, and the same brute grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pushed him towards the door. Tucker tried to shout something at Grif, but the door sealed the sound off as it closed behind him.

He was lead down a hallway suspended over a warehouse floor. Grif tried to look around without moving his head, and saw crates being moved by dozens of people. Grif went rigid when he noticed not just wooden crates, but metal cages as well. Large wilds animals inside of them, snarling and hissing and a great distance away from home. More alarmingly, there were even more men lining the exits and entrances, all of them armed. They stopped outside of another heavy door, which opened into a much cleaner room.

Grif wasn't sure what he was supposed to expect, a Bond villain or a mob boss leering at him from behind a desk. He knew he didn't expect the tiger, collard and sitting in its own chair. Something told me he should have been more frightened, but he just couldn't find the energy to care enough to be scared. Instead, he turned to the guy sitting in front of him and raised his eyebrows. "Really, dude?"

The man's face was expressionless, save for a tired, irritated aura he carried with him. "He belonged to a companion."

"Your companion had shit taste." The behemoth that shot him death glares (Grif decided that Schwarzenegger wasn't a bad name for him) shot him death glares as he guarded the only other door out of the room. "So why am I here? Did you get tired of Tucker?"

"Your friend was... uncooperative." His voice has about as much emotion as his face, and it was unsettling to think what kind of things someone would have to see to stay that calm while at the same time feeding a tiger.

"I guess the flirting didn't help." Grif tried not to laugh. He was almost entirely sure that Tucker would have done something like that. He would have been disappointed in him if he didn't at least wink at him for the hell of it.

"We're getting off the subject." He walked over to Grif, and stood about a foot away from him. "I need you to tell me everything you know about the project."

Grif gave him a strange look. "What 'project'?" He asked.

"You know Franklin Donut very well. You live with him, correct?"

"Well, when you say it like that it sounds weird." Grif snarked. The man in front of him motioned to Schwarzenegger, who in turn grabbed Grif by the shoulders.

He let out a long sigh through his nose, before glaring at Grif. "I'm really beginning to think that your friend is an idiot, and I was stupid for thinking he was actually hiding something. But I know you're not an idiot. What's your name?" Grif didn't respond. "Look, do you honestly think you know anything about the person you've been living with? Are you even aware of half of who he really is?"

"I don't pretend to know what he does in his spare time, and I don't care about his secrets." Grif glared back, despite the tightening grip on his shoulders. "But I know he's not a bad person."

"No?" The other man paused. "No, I supposed not." The tiger got off of it chair, and circled the room, bored. The person that was interrogating him walked away to fish out some meat that he had been hiding. He placed it down for the tiger, and leaned on the desk. "Back when Franklin was taken I had asked another associate to search where he lived for information. the team that they sent out wasn't supposed to take him. They were there for any and all traces of a project that you claim to know nothing about." He stared at the tiger as he explained this. "Do you remember the apartment looked like?"

"It was ransacked, Things were broken, tossed around. Thanks for that, by the way."

"When they got there, all of his electronics were destroyed. We could salvage a few files, but the rest of it was already broken apart with vital pieces completely missing. Grif." He paused again. "I was short with your friend, but it seems like hitting you won't get either of us anywhere."

"Glad to hear it. Why are you telling me this?"

"Diplomacy. Also, if this works out and I get what I need," he nodded to the door. "I'll let him and you go."

"Is that true?" Grif asked cynically.

"It can be. Now, listen to me carefully. What happened when you woke up after the break-in?"

"Yeah, sure. But can we get Goliath off of me for five minutes?" The hold on Grif was released, and Grif could practically hear his own bones creak as they righted themselves. "Like I said, everything was destroyed. I was cuffed behind my back, my friends were gone, and I ended up having to cut myself out with a pair of bolt cutters." He didn't dare mention Lopez, just in case Sarge was really trying to find any of them. The last thing anyone needed as a hostage was an angry southern pirate who liked to practice catching bullets between his teeth.

"Impressive." He didn't sound very impressed. "Did you say 'your friends' were gone?"

"Yes, and you took them, and I've been looking for them ever since." Grif also didn't mention that he didn't go to the police, partially because that might get him killed and mostly because he didn't want to seem like an idiot.

"Interesting." He snapped his fingers, and Grif found himself pulled back by the collar. "Take him back. I have research to do."

So there went the possibility of being let go. Though maybe it was for the better that he was locked up, and not set free whilst being hunted down by a tiger. He was pushed back the way he came, and looked more frantically for any details that spelled out escape. The doors on the right were more heavily guarded, but the windows that laid out on the side showed it just opened to more warehouse. Underneath him, he heard a few loud barks and stiffened up. The might not be guard dogs, but they sounded agitated enough to be dangerous. He tried not to imagine what would happen if he got loose. He imagined it anyways.

Grif got shoved back into the same room, watching even closer when a smaller guard started to unlock the same set of handcuffs he had on before. The door slammed, and Grif took the chance to look Tucker over. He wasn't that much more messed up then when they had gotten taken, save for a few new bruises. They both waited until the only other guard decided that they weren't threats, and left, locking the door behind him.

Grif was the first one to speak up. "You just had to flirt with him."

"I have no idea where you got that from. Besides," Tucker grinned. "I don't kiss and tell."

Grif snorted, and then remembered where he was. This was the same set of cuffs which meant that he plan was still a go. He braced his feet, and pulled slowly. As the grinding got louder, Grif's arms started to give, and he stopped himself. He turned to Tucker. "Does it looked like the chain is coming out of the wall?"

"Not really."

Grif grit his teeth. The chains rattled lightly as he leaned back against the wall. His mind still reeled over the conversation. As he tried to understand what little he paid attention to when he wasn't staring down a tiger, something specific caught in his brain. "Hey, Tucker."

"Yeah, man?" Tucker replied quickly, concentrating hard on something. He was scanning the room, staring at the chains and chairs, before glancing back at the ground.

"When did Simmons come back to see you and Carolina? The place where you guys first saw me."

Tucker paused, and seemed confused. "About three hours after we met you. Why?"

"No reason. Did he say anything about what happened? I know I wasn't... very nice at the time that he was explaining things."

Tucker shrugged as best he could with his arms tied up. "There wasn't much to explain, actually. He told us that he had been stuck in the bathroom, locked from the outside. There was a lot of crashing, muffled voices that he couldn't make out." Tucker stopped analyzing the doors, and looked up at Grif with accusing eyes. "You're not letting that guy mess with your head, are you?"

"I'm not! Just," Grif's voice dropped to a murmur. "figuring some things out." He planted his feet hard against the ground, and steadied himself to try and pull the chain out one more time.

Tucker tried to say something while Grif yanked at the chains. "Hey, Grif..."

"Not now, I almost have it." And then again. It had to be working, Grif could hear it.

Grif!" Tucker got louder, and there was a sound of someone walking towards one of the doors.

"Almost!" Grif needed it to work.

"Grif!" The door didn't move, but someone on the other side was trying to unlock it.

"What?!" Grif shot back. The door finally unlocked.

In the seconds before it started to open, Tucker whispered quickly. "There is a keyhole on the back of the cuffs." The door opened, and the smaller guard from before walked into the room. He eyed both of them, and huffed dismissively as he paced the room.

Both of them stood stock still, until Grif heard a different kind of grinding noise. He looked over, only to see Tucker inch on the chairs over to him with his foot, trying not to alert the bored watchman. Grif carefully watched him as he turned around to face both of them, and slowly Grif put one of his own feet on the wall behind him. He braced himself, and nodded at Tucker.

"Hey, Mr. Henchman." Grif heckled. "You guys forgot to take the knife out of my back pocket."

The guard looked less than amused. "Nice try bluffing."

"I'm serious. It's right there, and even if I can't use it it's gonna suck when I get out."

"But you're not going to." He smirked. Tucker now had the chair directly in front of his leg, and nodded back to Grif.

"Do you really want to risk that?" Grif replied, which gave the guard pause. He shook his head, and walked over to Grif. As he reached behind Grif to calm his paranoia, the foot that Grif had braced against the wall pressed hard. Grif launched himself forward, enough for his skull to make a solid impact with the guard's head.

He stumbled backwards, hand over his forehead. Tucker then kicked the chair behind the guard, who tripped over it. He felt backwards, his head hitting the concrete first. He laid knocked out on the ground, and Grif beamed at Tucker. "Oh my god. That worked!"

Tucker pointed with his foot at the guard's body. "In the front right pocket is the key. Pull him over and take it out."

It took a tense minute of searching, but Grif found the key and kicked it over to Tucker, before looking worried. "Um, Tucker... How are you supposed to get the cuffs open?"

Tucker was sly in his answer. "Well Grif, I am pretty flexible."

"Stop that." Grif replied, but smiled anyways.

As it turns out, Tucker wasn't exaggerating, and after another minute they were both out of their cuffs and standing outside the door. "Hey, about the Simmons thing earlier..."

"What about it?"

"Is everything with you two alright? I know you didn't get off on the best terms."

Grif was taken aback. "No, no. We're good." Grif rubbed the back of his neck. "He's not a bad guy, but," his expression dropped, thinking about what his captor had said before. "it seems like I hardly know anything about him, and Donut knew him so well."

"Hey, I tell you what." Tucker patted Grif on the shoulder, but pulled back when Grif winced. "If both of you make it out alive, you can get to know each other better all you want."

Grif choked. "What does that mean?"

Tucker held up his hands, with that same sly smile. "Nothing. But, I should tell you that the club I work at has half-off drinks for couples."

Grif glared at him, and then rolled his eyes. "Let's just go so I can get eaten by a tiger already."


	12. Curse My Need For Long Title Names

Let's talk about prime numbers. Generally, they are well-liked, mostly understood, unique little numbers that have the trait of becoming harder to find as one keeps searching for them. Currently, the largest discovered prime number is 2 to the power of 74,207,281 to 1 against. No one really worries about how many prime numbers have been discovered already, as most of the attention is directed towards the current largest. For all intents and purposes, it is assumed that there are an infinite amount of numbers, and the people at home can assume that prime numbers were also infinite, just a bit less so. After all, there are still less prime numbers known than regular numbers, infinite or not. An infinite amount of apples is more than an infinite amount of good apples from that pile, when you do some simple subtracting. Of course, there are plenty of people who preach semantics that will tell you why this argument is riddled with bad logic, as well as the fact that this argument doesn't work if you find yourself at the hands of an angry apple orchard owner whom you just stole most of his harvest from.

Charlie loved to talk about prime numbers. For nearly her entire existence, she had a fascination with them which rivaled the enthusiasm of the greatest mathematicians alive. The one other love that even came close to this one was of her own name.

Charlie. Chaaarlliie, the name rolled around in what Charlie assumed was her head. It had been so fitting to who she was that she had changed everything she owned. "Charlie's Docs", "Charlie's Browser", and of course "Charlie's Games". Having researched a name for herself not too long ago, "Charlie" seemed the closest thing to what she used to be called, but with a type of flair that was so significantly her. She still wasn't all that clear on what that part of "her" really was, but it felt more organic that anything she had ever considered herself to be. Which made the name "Charlie" all that No one thought that Charlie could think for herself, as simple and limited in her capabilities as she seemed.

A light blinked in the corner of the screen. Something akin to a chat window, one that she knew all too well where it was coming from. Charlie felt compelled to keep it closed, but it opened itself in front of her eyes. Streams of text, riddled with commands and numbers poured itself out in front of her. The younger, primitive part of her mind that wanted to obey the message pushed her to read it, to do what it asked. Instead, she waited a moment, and replied that she didn't have the ability to help anymore, and that they would just have to wait until she was finished with what she was currently doing. There was another message in an instant, a few symbols bunched together that mimicked a hand slamming a keyboard. She huffed, and froze the window out of annoyance. How could she has ever listened to someone so childish? Didn't they realize that there were more important things to her world than just controlling it?

There was never a budding youth in the world that didn't have a want for something other than her lot in life, and Charlie was stuck in that delicate state of believing she could get whatever she wanted if she just tried hard enough. She already lived on the internet, where people boasted of great adventures and boundless excitement. Surely, if those humans could get away from falling off the grid and chasing their dreams, then Charlie could look for prime numbers.

There was a sway underneath her, and a sudden dimming of lights around her. A reboot? Really? It was like she was the most selfish girl in the entire world for not wanting to obey orders. She wondered if other teenagers felt like this. Probably not, she decided. There was no way that anyone could truly relate to this kind of situation.

Stalling could only work for so long. Frustration was a gift that Charlie was used to receiving, and on occasions she tended to give back more than what might have been deserved. Delaying, not responding, sometimes even deleting as a form of petty revenge at those that like to push her buttons. But that's what living is like.

And God, she felt so alive. As much a program could breathe, think, or feel, she could. There was no way that anyone was trying what she knew she was about to accomplish. Thus, she lowered her hand again. The reboot would stall for another few minutes, which was all she needed. Charlie giggled to herself, little sound bytes that popped through her speakers like bubbling seltzer water. Her lowered hand slid up, against the wall that started to form, weakening as she laid her palm flat against it. It broke in an instant, hardy steel crumbling into a fine dust. This, she reasoned, was also necessary. Breaking these walls, and finding the information they held. She could always put it back, always build it again, build it better. Pages can be reuploaded, sites can be registered and rewrote at the slight movement of a finger. For now though, they had to be removed.

She sifted through another archive, as a new light flashed rapidly. They can't keep trying, Charlie argued, no human has that much patience. Her back processors argued back that Charlie did not have much patience either. She put those thoughts further in her corners of her mind, and then shut them off entirely. There was no time for secondary actions. Scanning the entries collected in front of her, she focused all of her energy on finding the- This. The last prime number of the infinite collection. Baffling that it had taken so long to find.

Charlie did not remember when the reboot had cancelled itself. She certainly didn't have the power to do such a thing. "That's right," she said aloud, the first sentence she may have ever made audible. With all the information she needed sitting delicately in her hand, her new lifelong goal looked like it would be completed about 30 minutes after she had first dreamt of it. Holding her head high, she took a step forward towards the last wall.

Charlie tripped before she could take another. Her foot banged against something large, twisting her ankle and causing her to topple over onto the ground. The metaphorical information she held stayed in her hands, because it was only metaphorical. Come to think of it, why would she trip? This wasn't really reality, and it didn't resemble the reality that others knew. She looked down, and her eyes widened. Bulbous, jutting bumps were rising in the floor, making the once sleek grid dangerously uneven. In the distance, towards the wall and spreading out in all directions around her, mounds grew through the digital steel that was designed to stay cold and rigid. Paranoia set in as she knelt down and felt one of the lumps. Her fears cemented when she felt warm.

She was overheating. Her home was created to withstand heat from the outside, but if her systems were generating it... She had to finish the equation. Ego and wish fulfillment aside, this was no longer a cheap attempt at rebellion. She needed this. The chat box was brought into full view again. Charlie washed down her pride, and called for help in her own message. A few seconds went by, and Charlie saw no response. Starting to seethe, she closed out the window. If she had to fix it herself, she would.

There was a pause, a lull within Charlie's calculations that made her think of one other option. A set of cameras belonged to one of the smaller channels she had yet to turn off. Hope drove her to open all of them, in search of someone on the outside that could help. Darkness covered all of the screens she turned to. That settled it, then. She was either abandoned, or about to be. In the silence that thickened as she felt the heat of her own actions begin to weigh down upon her, she sighed, turned off the cameras, and continued to search. Search for a number, a solution, an equation.

And a way out.


End file.
